The World Wide Web (web) is a system of interlinked resources, such as, for example, hypertext documents (web pages) that may include text, images, sounds, videos, and various other forms of multimedia, that are linked together over the Internet. Resources available on the web generally are identified by uniform resource locators (URLs) that specify the global network addresses of the resources. Resources available on the web may be accessed by instructing a web browser, or similar application, running on a client computer to retrieve resources at particular network addresses by specifying their corresponding URLs.
For example, a web page, or other resource, available on the web may be viewed by entering the URL of the web page, or other resource, in a navigation bar of a web browser, or similar application, running on a client computer. In response, the web browser requests the web page, or other resource, from the server that corresponds to the specified URL and the server transmits the web page to the client computer on which the web browser is running. The web browser then renders, or otherwise displays, the web page, or other resource, received from the server.
Many web pages include embedded hyperlinks (links) to other web pages and/or resources available on the web that enable a user to access the linked web pages and/or resources by selecting the links instead of affirmatively entering the URLs of the web pages and/or resources in the navigation bar of a web browser.
After accessing and displaying a web page, some web browsers may transparently prefetch one or more web pages and/or other resources linked by the displayed page and store the prefetched pages and/or resources in local cache. Then, if a user instructs the web browser to access one of the prefetched web pages or other resources linked to the displayed page, the web browser can quickly serve up the requested web page or resource from local cache rather than having to retrieve the web page or resource from the remote server on which it resides.